Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is an essential "MST3K" episode

I watched this episode on a 2-DVD set of "Mystery Science Theater
3000-The Essentials" of which the other disc had the short Hired, Part
II and Manos, The Hands of Fate. In the invention exchange, Dr.
Forester and TV's Frank show a machine that turns great presents into
crappy ones while Joel and the 'bots have additions to The Island of
Misfit Toys from the Rankin/Bass "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer".
During the movie we get references to "Twin Peaks", the LAPD, dyslexic
kids, Larry Storch, Dr. Stranglove, etc. (incidentally, the same stock
footage of planes refueling also appeared in that Kubrick masterpiece).
Second segment had Joel and the 'bots singing "A Patric Swayze
Christmas" with Crow especially enjoying warbling about kicking butts
as Swayze does in his favorite movie Road House! Another one after that
had them doing poems of what Christmas means to them with Servo getting
upset at the possibility of Santa being killed if he came to the
Satellite of Love! My favorite riff in the entire show came from Crow
when, after some noticeable splices during a news anchor's segment in
which he mentioned two children seeming to "disappear in thin air", he
says, "Just like some frames of this film!" LOL! John Call plays Santa
here, Bill McCutcheon plays the dim-witted Droppo, Ned Wertimer (Ralph
the Doorman on "The Jeffersons") plays a reporter who interviews Santa
and, in her film debut, 10-year-old Pia Zadora plays one of the Martian
children. And, yes, Joel and the 'bots make fun of her Golden Globe
award. Not every riff line works but this was one of the funniest
episodes of "MST3K" I've seen and there are even some touching moments
that were a little unexpected to me here. And I loved the snow globe on
Tom Servo's head. The movie itself, both intentionally and not, can be
funny on its own especially with scenes of Droppo or the villains or
both. And you gotta dig a theme song that spells Santa right then calls
him Santy in the next line as the words are printed on the screen! So
on that note, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians was truly an essential
episode of "MST3K".